The Duke of Wellington Urgently Prepares for the Battle of Waterloo, Announcing the Great Summit Between English and Prussian Commanders That Eventually Led to Victory There

Additionally, in a separate, unpublished document, Wellington, through his field agent, prepares and acknowledges funds to raise a larger fighting force ahead of the summer 1815 campaign and announces active negotiations with Germanic states, Portugal and other allied powers

In all our decades in this field, we have never before seen a more important Wellington letter relating to preparations for Waterloo, nor a document actually providing for the raising of the men needed for the final victory.

In the spring of 1814, after decades of war, the Allied forces of Europe defeated Napoleon Bonaparte. The Treaty of Fontainebleau, signed April 11, 1814, laid out the terms they imposed, and pursuant to one of them, Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba, off the coast of France. On February 26, 1815, Napoleon escaped from Elba with the help of loyal soldiers and returned to the mainland on March 1, 1815. He marched to Paris, arriving on March 20, and governed for the famed “100 Days.”

Meanwhile, the Allied armies waited for what might come next. A newly installed Napoleon threatened renewed action. The Duke of Wellington was head of the British and Allied forces on the Continent and was stationed in Brussels, Belgium. He feared Napoleon would move north toward Belgium. He had men stationed there, among them General Dornberg, who on the evening of May 2 sent to Wellington news that Napoleon and his forces were leaving Paris, bound for the Belgian border. This intelligence reached Wellington late in the evening and alarmed the general, who sought to do two things immediately: alert the British King and rally his Prussian allies to his side.

Gebhart Blucher was head of the Prussian armies fighting against Napoleon. On hearing the news of Napoleon’s movements, Wellington arranged an emergency meeting that evening with his Prussian counterpart, which he announces in this letter. In this same letter, he seeks to alert the King: Napoleon will be on the move.

Autograph letter signed, to Sir Charles Stuart, Brussells, May 3, 1815. “I send you a note from General Dornberg which I received in the night, which I beg you to lay before the King. I am going to Tirlemont to meet Blücher but expect to be back by five or six o clock.”

On that evening, Wellington and Blücher met at the mid-point of Tirlemont at what became a famous meeting, agreeing to support each other if Napoleon attached the British or Prussian armies. They also agreed to concentrate 220,000 English, Prussian, Belgian, Hanoverian and Brunswick troops to prepare to meet Napoleon.

Although news of Napoleon’s departure from Paris was premature, the fact of movement and direction proved correct, and the alliance created that night between Wellington and Blucher led to the successful outcome of the campaign against Napoleon at Waterloo. This was to be the final act of the Napoleonic Wars.

On May 5, 1815, the government, now armed with the information sent by Wellington, sprung into further action. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nicholas Vansittart, wrote to Wellington, “It appears to [Prime Minister} Lord Liverpool and me that the most effectual way of relieving the Commander of the Forces and at the same time of introducing regularity system and despatch into many of the minor branches of the service would be to send out a Comptroller of Army Accounts to be attached to head quarters.” They sent Arthur Rosenhagen to be Wellington’s man on the ground. Days later, Rosenhagen prepared a document listing all that had been done outside formal conventions by Wellington to create the fighting force to be needed so very soon. Wellington had feared the number of men he needed could not be found in Britain alone, and so he had recommended to Lord Liverpool that the British government prepare for a summer campaign against the newly resurgent Napoleon by paying for additional troops from Allied powers.

In this document, Rosenhagen, on behalf of Wellington, sends what would have been an enclosure in a no-longer-present letter, listing what Wellington had done and was doing to bolster the Allied fighting force just a month before Waterloo. He acknowledges the newly pledged 5 million pounds and announces that he has in active negotiations with other powers.

Autograph document, in the hand of Rosenhagen, to the Prime Minister or Chancellor of the Exchequer, no date but mid May 1815. “The general Treaty of Alliance is followed by a supplementary convention by which Great Britain stipulates for the payment to Austria, Russia, and Prussia of a subsidy of 5,000,000 pounds sterling in equal portions, for one year, commencing 1st April 1815, by equal monthly payments in London, the first to be due the 1st May 1815. Exclusive of this engagement the Duke of Wellington has been empowered to enter into engagements with other powers for completing the quota of 150,000 men which Great Britain engages to furnish for the army, and even to extend that number, if the sum placed at his disposition, and which amounts to 500,000 a month, shall be capable of furnishing a larger number, after providing for the expense of his British troops. Under this authority his grace has contracted with the King of Bavaria for a body of troops to be paid for at the rate of 11.2 per man for one year, and has entered into negotiations with Hanover and several other powers of Germany and with Portugal and the King of Sardinia, for a body of troops at the same rate….”

This document does not appear to have been published and history does not record it or its cover letter.

In all our decades in this field, we have never before seen a more important Wellington letter relating to preparations for Waterloo, nor a document actually providing for the raising of the men needed for the final victory.